The High Cost of Fitting In: Reclaiming Your Power as a Neurodivergent Leader ft. Rita Ramakrishnan
Release Date: 01/28/2026
The High Cost of Fitting In: Reclaiming Your Power as a Neurodivergent Leader ft. Rita Ramakrishnan
Uncommon Leadership
For many tech leaders—especially the neurodivergent—success often feels like a performance. You mirror the behaviors you see, fit ourselves into neurotypical boxes, and pay for it with our mental and physical health. But leadership doesn’t have to be a grind. When you stop fighting your own wiring and start leveraging your Pattern Recognition Engine, you don't just work faster—you work with Cognitive Ease. In this episode of Uncommon Leadership Podcast, Michael Hunter sits down with neurodivergent executive coach and researcher Rita Ramakrishnan to debug the Masking Tax...
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From Debt to Real Wealth: Debugging Your Financial System ft. Julie Murphy
Uncommon Leadership
You cannot separate your numbers from your nervous system. When you operate from a "hijacked" state—driven by financial pasts, debt snowballs, or "rich but empty" milestones—you’re driving on the rough shoulder of the road. You’re wrecking your suspension (your health and relationships) and wondering why the journey feels like a grind. Success without joy is neither an achievement nor joyful. It’s just a "leaky container" waiting to drain your energy. In this episode of the Uncommon Leadership Podcast, I, Michael Hunter, am joined by Julie Murphy, a...
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Moving from Values on the Wall to Authenticity in the Room ft. Henry Suryawirawan
Uncommon Leadership
If you see your team stalling, projects dragging, and an invisible friction you can’t quite name—this podcast is for you. When tech leaders feel a gap between expectations and outcomes, their first natural response is often to withdraw or try to fix the situation with more rules and processes. And without even realizing it, that distance creates a cycle of silence. Your team begins to play it safe, hiding the very "human data" you need to actually move forward. In this episode of the Uncommon Leadership Podcast, I, Michael Hunter, am joined by Henry Suryawirawan—an engineering...
info_outline![Why Great Leaders Get Stuck [And What Actually Frees Them] ft. Gary Montalvo show art](https://assets.libsyn.com/content/196866440?height=50&width=50)
Why Great Leaders Get Stuck [And What Actually Frees Them] ft. Gary Montalvo
Uncommon Leadership
Tech leaders are struggling because they’re carrying too much— too much pressure to have answers, too much responsibility for outcomes, too little space to be human. And it’s exhausting. In the latest episode of the Uncommon Leadership Podcast, I, Michael Hunter from Uncommon Teams, sit down with leadership and mindset coach Gary Montalvo for a deeply honest conversation about what actually blocks leaders from creating healthy teams, resilient cultures, and sustainable results. From his early days as a 22-year-old art director at Sony Music to building his own...
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Uncommon Roundtable: How High-Performing Tech Teams Actually Build Resilience
Uncommon Leadership
As leaders, we’re taught to push through. Work harder. Focus longer. Stay disciplined. But what if resilience isn’t built by endurance at all? What if it’s shaped in the small, almost invisible moments—how teams reset, reconnect, and rehumanize their work before exhaustion sets in? In this episode of the Uncommon Leadership Roundtable Podcast, Michael Hunter from Uncommon Teams brings together a group of deeply respected practitioners to explore resilience not as a personal trait—but as a systemic capability. What unfolds is an honest, experience-driven...
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The Hidden Dynamics That Make or Break Tech Teams ft. Keith Klain
Uncommon Leadership
Most leaders believe their teams go quiet because people fear conflict, don’t know what to say, or lack confidence. But that’s almost never the real reason. In this episode of Uncommon Leadership, Keith Klain joins me to reveal a harder, more human truth: Teams go quiet when they stop trusting how honest their leaders will be with them. Keith shares the shift that transformed every organization he led—from global banks to fast-paced tech teams. When he stopped treating information as currency and started telling people the real “why” behind decisions,...
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Six Pillars of Resilient Leadership ft. Jim Carlough
Uncommon Leadership
What if the real competitive advantage in your organization isn’t your strategy or your technology— but the way you show up for your people when everything feels uncertain? In this episode of the Uncommon Leadership Podcast, I’m joined by Jim Carlough—a veteran healthcare executive, strategist, and author. Jim’s journey spans from captaining sports teams in his youth to helping organizations find their footing again. Through every experience, Jim kept returning to the same anchors: persistence, focus, and a genuine responsibility to his team. And this became the...
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How Top Leaders Build Teams That Speak Up ft. Fortune Buchholtz
Uncommon Leadership
Are your teams holding back? Are they experimenting, speaking up, or taking risks when the stakes are high? If not, you're dealing with a problem that hasn't surfaced yet. And it's not a skill problem. Or a process problem. It’s most likely a culture problem. When your people don’t feel safe, they don't take risks. They hide their vulnerabilities. And in an environment like this, even your best talent stays silent — or quietly leaves. Hi there! Welcome back! I’m Michael Hunter from Uncommon Teams, and in this episode of the Uncommon...
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The Chiropractic Leadership ft. Rita Malvone
Uncommon Leadership
Why aren't your teams bringing you their best ideas? Why are they silent in meetings? Most likely, they don't feel psychologically safe to speak up. Or they haven't connected with the real you yet. If this sounds true for your team, your leadership approach is heading into isolation, and you are facing a quiet crisis. The good news is that it's not too late, and together—we can fix it! Hi there! I'm Michael Hunter from Uncommon Teams, and welcome to another exciting episode of the Uncommon Leadership Podcast. Joining me today is Rita Malvone, a renowned business...
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Why True Leaders Create Space, Not Rules ft. Ravi Iyer
Uncommon Leadership
When 85% of medical practices in the USA shut their doors, Dr. Ravi Iyer, a Harvard-trained physician and human potential expert, became the last line of defense as he and his team kept theirs open. Dr. Iyer's mantra, all for one and one for all, led him to serve over 100,000 patients through the chaos and disruption caused by the pandemic. Hello and welcome to another fascinating episode of the Uncommon Leadership Podcast—I'm your host, Michael Hunter from Uncommon Teams. Today, we are conversing with Dr. Iyer—one of the rare TED speakers whose talks were removed and...
info_outline- A startling reality—your manager has more impact on your mental health than your therapist or your partner. We discuss how to use this influence as leadership telemetry, not a burden of guilt.
- How to stop reacting on the dance floor of daily fires and step onto the balcony to see the patterns. This is the core of Choice Architecture.
- How to stop decoding your workplace and start co-creating it. We talk about the simple, 10-minute conversations to integrate your team’s collective intelligence.
- Energy Mapping: How to identify the Special Sauce in your day—the moments that leave you energized instead of depleted.